Sud Yungas Paradise

Hello friends,

Sorry it´s taken me so long to update the blog. Things have been kind of crazy.
For one thing, last weekend was a long weekend (All Saints Day) and our church went on a retreat into a more jungly area, the Yungas, south Yungas to be exact. We stayed at a lovely Catholic retreat center, order of Saint Augustine. The weather was hot, humid, and lovely. The pool was deep enough and cool enough to be perfect, especially when cooling off before heading to bed. A wonderful time. One drawback, though - I got a hideous bug bite on one ankle, and it´s now swollen and painful. Hopefully it´ll settle down soon!

On another front, I would appreciate prayer for my breathing again. After several tests today, the cardiologist seems to think that I´m not adjusting as well to the altitude as I did last year. In other words, I need to slow down. He´s given me some pills that he thinks should help as well, so we´re going to try that for a few days.

It was a lot of fun seeing a clinic in Bolivia, though! Quite different from here in Canada. First I had to pay for all the tests that were going to be run, and then they handed me the needle that would be taking my blood, and I went upstairs and handed it to the nurse! Also, you have to be canny about being in line-up for tests. If you´re not careful, someone will scoop your place. Good thing Carlos was there to stand up for me, because being rather too Canadian, I for sure wouldn´t have said anything if people budged in line, even after waiting about an hour for a chest x-ray!

My favourite moment at the clinic, however, was when Carlos and I came back downstairs and saw a group of doctors and nurses lifting a small boy through an office window - the kind of security window where there are bars over it, but an opening for you to speak through and slip money through. It seems the door had gotten accidentally locked while the keys were still inside. So they borrowed a small boy from one of the patients, and lifted him carefully through, and he unlocked the door for them. So cute!

More about the church camp later, if I can get my videos to load properly...
Love Rachael